


salted

by celoica



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bad Guy Billy Hargrove, Dom/sub Undertones, Drug Addiction, Drug Dealing, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Making Love, Mildly Dubious Consent, Possessive Behavior
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-29
Updated: 2019-03-16
Packaged: 2019-05-30 05:54:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15090419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celoica/pseuds/celoica
Summary: It was all Nancy Drew’s fault—or whatever her fucking name was.Billy was certain. He was more than certain. He was more certain than he was about the sun setting and rising every day, and the neighbour above him faking her orgasms at a pitch meant for dolphins every Friday night, eight on the dot. He was certain enough that he’d gamble his entire paycheck on it.Nancy Whatever-the-fuck-her-name-was was to blame for this.Thisbeing Steve Harrington, eyes hollow and mouth dry, banging on his door and asking for Adderall like every other cookie cutter, using-daddy’s-credit-card college student in Oakland.“Dude,” Billy said, because he couldn’t think of anything else to say.





	1. genghis khan

**Author's Note:**

  * For [festlich](https://archiveofourown.org/users/festlich/gifts).



 You are lovely. You have a lovely face and a beautiful body, long and light,  
and your skin is smooth and the color of burnt gold and everyone will try to take you from me.

—Ernest Hemingway, from _The Complete Works; “For Whom The Bell Tolls,”_

 

 

 

It was all Nancy Drew’s fault—or whatever her fucking name was.

Billy was certain. He was more than certain. He was more certain than he was about the sun setting and rising every day, and the neighbour above him faking her orgasms at a pitch meant for dolphins every Friday night, eight on the dot. He was certain enough that he’d gamble his entire paycheck on it.

Nancy Whatever-the-fuck-her-name-was was to blame for this.

 _This_ being Steve Harrington, eyes hollow and mouth dry, banging on his door and asking for Adderall like every other cookie cutter, using-daddy’s-credit-card college student in Oakland.

“Dude,” Billy said, because he couldn’t think of anything else to say.

He yawned and looked over his shoulder. The clock on the microwave blinked 7:53 at him in a blue haze. It taunted him, reminding him that he should be in fucking bed, sleeping peacefully and dreaming about getting his cock sucked by Val Kilmer in the backseat of his old Camaro.

“Dude,” he said again. “The fuck are you doing here?”

Harrington had a twitchy look in his eye as he shifted from foot to foot, hands shoved deeply in his jean pockets. The hollows under his eyes looked big enough for Billy to crawl into, deep-set and bruised like he hadn’t slept in days.

He bit his lip and switched to rocking back and forth on his heels. Always moving, always shifting, like he couldn’t make himself sit still.

Jonesing could do that to a person.

“Spit it out,” Billy said, impatient, leaning his shoulder on the door frame.

Harrington cast a look up and down the empty hall and then looked to Billy, eyes wide and pleading. With the darkness collecting under his eyes, he looked like a child begging for scraps.

“Can I come in?” he asked, voice so rusty it matched the creaking pipes inside the apartment’s walls.

Billy studied him for a moment before nodding, stepping out of the way. Steve shuffled in like a ghost, edging away from Billy as he passed by.

“‘Kay,” Billy said as he closed the door, “you got ten seconds before I throw you out on your ass. What do you want?”

Harrington didn’t speak. Instead, he looked around Billy’s tiny apartment, eyes drifting from the tiny kitchen to the tiny living room, to the tiny bedroom connected to the rest of the tininess.

He narrowed his eyes. “Ten,” he said, voice hard.

Snapping to attention, Harrington withdrew his hands from his pockets, letting them fall to his sides. “I need Adderall.”

Adderall. Not speed or a bump, or an upper, or whatever-the-fuck flavour of the week all the college kids wanted from him. He’d always been good for weed and acid, and coke when his bank account was feeling flush for the month, but pills hadn’t been so important until he’d made his way back down to California, landing in Oakland when his Camaro finally sputtered out her dying breath and left him stranded.

College kids and their pills, living off their parents’ dime while they partied and drank and snorted their youth away.

Billy loved it. It paid for his last trip down to Mexico and the car parked outside, and all the things his shitty, below-minimum wage job didn’t cover.

It was how he’d met Harrington again, all the way down in Cali-fucking-fornia. It had been a shock at first, to see his face at some frat party Billy couldn’t remember the name of, and then it had been nothing but the usual when he did his weekly rounds on campus after he got off work.

“That’s good for you, princess,” he said, irritation biting at his neck. He was tired, and he’d been woken up for this? “Ask your daddy for some.”

Harrington scowled, lips peeling down and teeth baring, a flash of something other than listless nervousness. “Fuck off, Billy. I know you’ve got some.”

“Yeah? Who said that?”

“James.”

“James has a big mouth.”

“Do you or don’t you?” Harrington asked, fingers curling into his fists.

Billy sighed, heavy and dramatic, and rolled his eyes. “You’re not doing a good job of getting me in the mood. How much do you want?”

“Enough for today.”

“That’s specific.”

“What do you have?”

“Tens and twenties.”

Harrington bit his lip again and looked away. Billy wanted to reach out and touch his face, pull him close and make him look him in the eye. “Four tens.”

Billy raised an eyebrow but nodded. “Aight,” he said, smothering a yawn behind his hand as he stepped toward the kitchen. Harrington’s eyes stayed trained on him, unblinking now. It was weird. “It’s ten bucks a piece.”

Eyes dipping down, Harrington looked away, unmoving. He didn’t speak. Annoyed, Billy said, “Quit wasting my fucking time.”

“I don’t have any money.”

Billy froze. In the silence of his tiny, shitty apartment, he could hear his clock ticking away in his bedroom and the sounds of the world existing three stories below them from the cracked window.

“Seriously? Fuck you, Harrington,” he spat, pinning a glare on Harrington. “You woke me up for nothing?”

Harrington flinched like he’d been hit, eyes darting up to Billy and then dipping down again. A red stain spread across his cheeks.

Blushing. He was fucking _blushing_.

Confused, Billy frowned, eyes roving over him. Even when they’d been younger and stupider, he didn’t remember Harrington ever blushing. Even when he was head over heels for Nancy Drew, he hadn’t turned red or stuttered or turned into anything but smooth and mostly composed Steve fucking Harrington. Even when Billy had him pinned to the floor, fist smashing into his face, he hadn’t been flustered.

“I heard—” Harrington cut himself off and cleared his throat, still not looking at Billy. “I heard you...you know.”

“No, I don’t know what. What do I do?”

“...you know.”

“I don’t know how you got into college, man.”

Harrington huffed then, eyes darting up to look at Billy. His eyes landed somewhere closer to his collarbones than his face. “Jamie says sometimes you’ll…”

He cleared his throat again, shifting from foot to foot, no answer in sight.

“Jesus,” Billy groaned, pressing the heels of his palms against his eyes until they ached. His bed was beckoning him again, cozy and cool where the fan whirred directly into his face. “Would you just spit it the fuck out?”

“He says you’ll let guys suck you off for stuff.”

It came out in a rush, a blur of words that Billy had to space out and pick apart. They stuck together like gum, clogged up in Billy’s ears. Whatever he had been expecting, it hadn’t been that. Never that.

He could see it, too, so easily that it had to have been plucked from all his hormone-fueled teenage fantasies. Harrington on his knees, hand fisted in all that too-long hair, tugging his head back until his throat was bared. Eyes wide, mouth open and soft, spit and come dripping from the corners of his mouth while Billy thrust in, deep until Harrington choked and tears leaked from the corners of his eyes.

Hell, maybe he’d toss Harrington onto his bed, sprawl him out until his neck was hanging over the edge so he could watch the column of his throat as he worked his cock into his mouth, driving in deep and feeling him spasm around his dick, so tight it would almost hurt. Harrington would make choking noises, aborted whines with each shove until Billy pulled out and let him breathe—just for a second, just to watch him cough and sputter, spitting out saliva and precome, and then he’d be back in, hands cupping Harrington’s face to hold him in place as he thrust.

Mouth dry, he glanced at the ceiling and wondered if this was an omen of the Apocalypse.

“Who told you that?” he asked tightly, when he had counted back from ten and gotten a grip of his wandering thoughts and libidio.

“Just Jamie.”

“Jamie’s never sucked my cock, so how would he know?”

Harrington shrugged, cheeks flushed the softest of pinks, looking directly into Billy’s face when he looked down from the ceiling. Bravery and stupidity went hand-in-hand; Billy knew that well enough, and Harrington had both in spades.

“It’s what he told me.”

“He told you to whore yourself out for a couple pills?”

Harrington coughed into his fist, long fingers rubbing against his bottom lip. Billy tried not to stare and think about how close choking and coughing could sound to each other. “Not exactly.”

Billy rubbed both hands down his face and sucked in a sharp breath. It was too early in the morning, in the span of his fucking life, for this kind of conversation.

In California the second time around, without his Neil breathing down his neck and Susan reporting every action, he could be whatever he wanted to be, even a fag if he wanted to be, and he’d always wanted to be. Hiding it wasn’t necessary; he didn’t flaunt it, didn’t wear a nametag pinned to his shirt, but it was easier now to find what he wanted.

College boys were easy. In another life, he would have been one of them. In this one, he took advantage.

It was easy. They always made it so easy.

A handful had caught his attention, and a trade for a blowjob or two or three for a little baggie of weed or a couple drops of acid were worth it in Billy’s book.

But they weren’t Steve Harrington, from Hawkins, Indiana, hellbent on feeding whatever little addiction he’d built for himself long before Billy had walked back into his life.

“Do you?”

Billy dropped his hands and looked at Harrington, eyes narrowed. The flush was still there, pretty and pink, wholly unexpected. Tempting him. Heat and want snaked through his belly. How many men got to live their high school fantasy? How many had their high school fantasy’s offer themselves up on a silver platter, packaged prettily in desperation?

“Sometimes,” Billy admitted. He watched Harrington’s back straighten, that shifty look in his returning. Billy’s stomach clenched in lust and want and something as twisted as regret.

When Harrington moved before him, Billy turned away, holding one finger up. “Stay put.”

It was stupid to let an addict know where he kept his stash, but his apartment was small and shit, and there were only so many places to hide it. He could feel Harrington’s eyes on him as he dug in his old duffle bag, stashed away in his closet, for an unlabeled bottle. He counted out four pills into his palm, hesitating for only a moment before he tucked the bottle back into the bag.

In the sad excuse for his living room, he grabbed Harrington’s hand and spread out his fingers, dumping the pills into his palm. Harrington stared at him, wide-eyed and dumb, eyes darting between him and the pills.

“Do you want me to—?”

“Jesus, _no_.” Billy closed Harrington’s fingers into a fist and pushed his hand against his chest, giving him a little shove toward the door. “I’m coming to collect in three days. Got it?”

Harrington licked his lips. Billy’s eyes got stuck on the wetness there, shiny and pink and begging to be sucked red. He nodded slowly, swallowing hard enough that Billy could see the clear outline of his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat.

He wanted to sink his teeth into it, leave red marks and teeth bruises to be seen for days after.

“Thanks,” Harrington said, voice scratchy. He didn’t look back as he darted out the door, closing it with a gentle click behind him.

 

 

 

He made it his entire shift before he caved.

Keyed up on adrenaline, three cups of espresso and a whopping hundred dollar tip from some ritzy newlyweds, Billy slid into his car, jammed a piece of gum between his teeth and took off toward the university. 

He found Steve's frat house easily, and even at six in the morning they let him in just as easily. 

Everyone knew Billy. He made a point to be welcome.

Not bothering with knocking, he opened the door and stepped inside.

A bleary-eyed Steve looked up at him where he sat cross legged on the bed, books and papers and pens scattered around him. The hollows under his eyes looked like graveyards, sucking the life from him.

Billy wondered if he slept at all.

He closed the door behind him. Steve stared at him, lips parted and damp, as he crossed the room, giving a cursory glance to Jamie's empty bed, and shoved the pile on Steve's bed to make room to sit.

Steve swallowed so hard Billy could hear it. "It hasn't been three days.”

Billy raised an eyebrow and looked at the nearest paper. Scratched into the top was Steve's name, the date and a whole bunch of upside down information on high interest saving accounts.

What a fucking riot.

"I know," Billy said, turning his attention to Steve. He leaned back, resting his weight on the heels of his palms behind him. "I changed my mind."

Steve licked his lips. Billy's eyes dipped down, caught on the pink of tongue and white of teeth.

"About what?" he asked, like his tongue wasn't wagging and his lips weren't wet.

Thinking about his cock in Steve Harrington's mouth had gotten him through a hard shift. In the lull of tables, he'd imagined Steve on his knees, eyes open and mouth wet—so fucking much like it was now, and, Jesus, didn't that say something for his own imagination—and white come on his face. While he'd chewed gum angrily and ignored the tickle of cigarette smoke in his nose on his break, he'd imagined taking all his nicotine-deprived frustrations on Steve, pulling on his hair until he whined and holding him down on his cock until he gagged.

He thought about licking his mouth after, tasting slick saliva and salt-bitter spunk, kissing it into Steve's mouth and sliding a hand down to jerk him off, slow and sweet, until his hips twitched and he begged for it.

The Steve Harrington Billy had known in Indiana had been softer. Younger. There had been a roundness to everything he'd done, no matter how smooth he managed to make his actions. The Steve Harrington in front of him was all angles, jaw sharper, dark stubble that would probably feel like sin on the insides of his thighs scuffing his cheeks and chin.

The hollows were there but Billy could ignore them. He could ignore Jamie's socks on the floor and tax season. He could ignore the exhaustion.

"You _did_ offer." He leaned back further, cocking his head to the side.

Steve swallowed again. His Adam's Apple bob. His eyes flicked down to Billy's lap and back to his face, opening his mouth to speak and then snapping it before a word slipped out.

They stayed like that, silent, eyes heavy on each other. Dark lust, the twisted kind that made Billy think he was a little more fucked in the head than Neil claimed, rolled down his spine, spreading through his belly. His cock twitched, thickening in his pants.

Steve's thigh flexed and twitched, his fingers spreading and curling. He didn't speak.

Guilt picked alongside the want. Billy shifted, pushing to sit up. Maybe he'd misstepped. Hell, maybe he'd slammed his foot into a crack he wouldn't be able to drag himself out of.

Steve had been desperate a day ago. He wasn't now, all cozy-warm in his own bed and hopped up on uppers. He didn't _need_ to offer up how ass—or mouth—in exchange for what he already had.

"Steve—"

He got up, long legs unfolding slowly as he shuffled papers off his lap. Billy watched him cross the room to the door, hand lingering on the doorknob, back to Billy.

"Steve," Billy said again, a touch softer, frown bracketing his mouth.

Steve locked the door and turned. His eyes were unreadable. Billy felt pinned down by them.

"Take off your pants."

Never a man to be told twice, the remains of guilt disappeared into a flash of heat as Billy undid his belt and slacks, shoving them off his hips and down his thighs while Steve settled himself on his knees before him.

Steve’s hands landed on Billy’s thighs, palms so soft, and he felt them tremble, the tiniest shake running along his wrists. He was staring at Billy’s cock, half hard and the tip blushing blood, peeking from the hood of foreskin, resting against his thigh.

Billy shifted, uncomfortable, fingers twitching into a semi-fist until he couldn’t take it anymore. He touched his fingertips, worn and calloused, against Steve’s knuckles. “Steve,” he said. Steve didn’t look up. He said it again.

He was biting his lip, white teeth rigging into red and slick skin. Billy wanted to lean down and lick into his mouth, suck and nip and bite at the skin until it was red and sensitive from stubble.

His eyes were half-lidded, gaze dipping down to Billy’s dick again. His mouth opened to say something—anything that wasn’t silence and a heavy stare—when Steve cleared his throat and said, “I’m going to be really bad at this.”

Billy choked on a laugh Unlikely. Steve’s head jerked up, eyes narrowing, and the easy fury of being mocked flashed red-hot. “Nah,” he said, “It’s not that hard.”

Steve glared, eyes sharp, the tips of his nails biting into Billy’s thighs. He scowled. “Don’t be a dick and let me just—”

“Suck my dick?”

Eyes closing, Steve breathed deeply through his nose. Red flushed up his neck, fingers digging into Billy’s thighs hard enough to hurt. Billy grinned. “I’m going to punch you.”

“You make a lot of promises.”

“You never shut the hell up.”

“Want me to stop?”

Steve’s jaw clicked. “You could make this easy on me.”

“Have I ever?”

His lips twitched, pressing into a stubborn line when he opened his eyes to look up at Billy. His hands flattened on his thighs, sliding to curve his palm against Billy’s knees, liquid heat working its way across the trail of his skin. Billy curled his toes, a silent shiver snaking up his spine.

“No,” Steve said, finally, lips peeling open from the blunt line, tongue darting out to touch his bottom lip. He swallowed, eyes dipping down to Billy’s crotch. “Just tell me what to do.”

Rucked sheets sliding under him as he let his weight drop to his elbows, Billy sized him up. Steve, on his knees, in front of him, inches away from his cock. He’d seen it a thousand times before, projected in his head when he was jacking off in the shower—or, embarrassingly, the few times his body betrayed him entirely and he woke in the midst of orgasm, flushed and panting and moaning through the sudden crash of wakefulness and mind-numbing pleasure. Mortifying in the way nothing else was. Horrifying. Fucking _telling_.

On his knees, head dipped, lips shiny and pink and parting, he looked like something out of one of those wet dreams, stripped down to the bare bones.

“You could stop being so freaked out,” Billy said mildly.

Steve’s head rose, shooting him another glare. “I’m not _freaked out_.”

“Yeah, you are. You’re making my dick soft.”

The click was audible. Steve’s jaw clenched so tight Billy thought he might break his teeth, and Billy said, “Chill out.” And then, on a whim, “C’mere.”

Steve frowned, face softening a fraction, and he hunted Billy’s face for something. Impatient, Billy wrapped a hand around Steve’s wrist and tugged. Steve opened his mouth, shiny and wet and fuckable still, to say something. Billy pulled again, eyebrows raised, expectant.

As he unfolded from the floor, stiff as he stood, using Billy’s knee for leverage, Billy tugged him forward, hooking the toe of his shoe on his heel, kicking off his sneakers. Steve clambered awkwardly on top of him, elbows and knees everywhere, spine stiff as he settled on Billy’s lap.

Billy took the opportunity to slip his hands around him and grab his ass.

He jerked, hips rocking down in an unpleasant slide of friction and denim that had Billy’s cock giving an interested twitch and scowled again. Billy tipped his head back and smiled, sunny, and cupped his hands, giving a squeeze.

“You’re a dick,” Steve muttered, shifting his weight from knee to knee, rocking the line of his fly against Billy’s cock. It rode the edge of pain but he chased it, kneading his fingers until Steve’s hips twitched, bare toes flexing against Billy’s knees.

His hands hovered over Billy’s shoulders, hesitant in that way teenage virgins were, all damp palms and reeking of uncertainty. It turned him on, like the ridge of Steve’s fly, like the twisted desperation that had taken up residence in his eyes the day before. Once, Billy had been accused of being a twisted bastard by the most twisted little twink he’d fucked since he’d landed back in California, and he’d been right. Playing coy was a one-way ticket to disinterest, but the thought of being the one— _the first—_ to get his hands on Steve’s skin and mark him up, inside and out, was enough to leave his chest aching with undiluted want.

It was a fantasy at best, but Billy would bet his entire stash and the five hundred wrapped in rubber bands Steve had never had anything inside him. No fingers, no cock, no tongue.

It was close enough.

“Come on,” Billy said, letting his head fall back against the bed. Steve eyed him, dubious. “What makes a good blowjob?”

“What?”

“A. Good. Blowjob,” Billy said, over-enunciating each word, letting out a bark of laughter as Steve’s expression soured. “Just think about it.”

“Enthusiasm?”

“Yeah, enthusiasm, desire, whatever. You gotta want it so bad you think you’ll die if you don’t get your mouth on their cock. You know what I’m saying? You gotta need it like you can’t breathe without him in your throat. You’ll gag on it if it means he’ll come in your mouth.”

Billy’s fingertips crept up, playing under the hem of his shirt, brushing along the heated skin just above the band of his jeans. He felt the shiver down Steve’s back, the subtle shift of his hips from uncomfortable weight to rocking into a grind.

His hands settled on Billy’s chest. “How?”

Billy pressed his splayed palm to his back, basking in the twitch of his muscles beneath his skin. Stroking his thumb along the dip of his spine, he murmured, “That blonde bitch used to brag about your mouth, y’know. Told me you could make a chick come with your tongue. That still true?”

“Which blonde?”

He shoved an arm underneath himself, weight propped up on his elbow. “I don’t fucking know, man. Blonde. Dumb.”

“You think everyone is dumb.”

“You didn’t answer the question.”

“Do you want me to kiss you?”

“I didn’t say that.”

Steve’s breath skimmed his lips and chin, inching closer with each word exchanged. Billy stilled. The swell behind the uncomfortable press of metal and denim was telling. His heart was dead weight in his chest.

“Kiss me,” he murmured finally, when the silence had stretched to discomfort and his heavy heart had heaved, swelling in his chest.

Steve didn’t taste like defeat. He tasted like Billy's spat-out mint gum and saliva, like mercy and something underneath that Billy had only tasted in the air once, when he’d been seventeen and so headstrong he’d thought about breaking Steve apart with his bare hands just to get him out from under his skin.

He kissed with finesse, all charismatic lips and tongue, like Billy was a girl in desperate need of a delicate touch. Billy let him, head tilting, mouths fitting together like jigsaw pieces, and when Steve reached up to touch his cheek, holding him like a prayer cradled in his palms, he hesitated, and Billy grinned against his mouth, hooking an arm around his waist and rolling them onto the bed.

Steve grunted, smothered against Billy’s mouth, and Billy kissed him harder, fine china breaking apart under his hands as he gripped the hem of Steve’s shirt and yanked up, hands branding across Steve’s skin, fingers stretched from hip to ribs and creeping higher.

Underneath him, Steve squirmed, hips shifting and legs moving, hands groping his shoulders. He kissed like he was trapped, caught somewhere in No Man’s Land and lost. Billy kissed along his chin, down his jaw and to his ear.

Voice rough with kisses and want, he asked, “You good?”

He’d never cared before. He’d never had a reason to. Guys willing to suck his cock were a dime a dozen, whether they were idiots in college with addictions to feed or guys he picked up after work, when he went to a bar or club and wanted to blow off more than steam. Names, faces and tastes blurred together, until they were wet heat and a gentle buzz in the back of his head that he forgot faster than algebra.

He never kissed them either. They never deserved it.

But it was Steve Harrington, in the flesh, under him, hands still shaking as they knitted in his hair, eyes a little hazy as he nodded and licked his lips and said, gravel-rough, “I’m good.”

Fingers circling lazy patterns on his ribs, Billy hummed, catching Steve’s earlobe between his teeth, tugging. He moved down to the slim column of his neck, over the sharp bump of his Adam’s apple, teeth scraping and nipping and sucking until Steve made a downright delicious noise on his throat. He hooked an ankle over Billy’s bare leg, scrabbling down the back of his neck to fist in the collar of his shirt.

Billy dropped a kiss to the hollow of his throat, pushing up his shirt to his armpits, and then ducked down, hand splayed on Steve’s ribs as he caught his nipple in his mouth. It hardened between his teeth, between the licks and sucks, the roll of his tongue, and Steve made an aborted noise, tiny and choked, back arching off the bed when Billy bit down.

His teeth clacked and he hissed, hands wound so tight in Billy’s hair it almost hurt, and gritted out, “ _Fuck_ , Billy.”

It was his name, heavy on Steve’s tongue, thick enough that Billy could feel it in the dip of his spine as he hunched over Steve. Nipple caught between his teeth, he glanced up, feeling the tug and strain of Steve’s skin, and caught Steve’s eyes.

Dark, watchful, drinking in the movement as Billy let his nipple go, lips parted around a sharp gasp as he switched the other, trailing wet kisses across Steve’s sternum. He watched Steve’s eyes flutter shut, the tremble in his jaw as he let out a wanting noise, deep from his throat, head falling back against the bed.

Each noise Steve made was like honey on his tongue, thick and luscious, dripping down the back of his throat, and Billy thought about his cock, the hard press beneath Steve’s fly, brushing against his ribs as he bent lower. Turned on, filled up with it, hard for _Billy_. It went straight to his head, narrowing the entire world down to where their bodies touched.

He tugged open Steve’s fly with deft fingers, worrying Steve’s nipple with his teeth until Steve moaned, real and throbbing.

Billy knew lust. He knew want and devotion to desire, the desire to fuck and be fucked. He knew what it meant when a man threw back his head and moaned. He knew what it meant when Steve lifted his hips as Billy tugged his jeans and briefs down his thighs.

Billy set a kiss to Steve’s nipple and sat on his knees, dragging Steve’s jeans off his body, tossing them to the floor. When he looked back, Steve was pushed up on his elbows, damp-slick at the hairline, eyes bright and chest heaving.

Wiping the saliva off his mouth, Billy grinned. “Still good?”

“Yeah,” Steve said, nodding. He cracked a smile, wobbly, and closed his eyes. “Still good.”

Billy settled between Steve’s legs, hands on his thighs, leaning over Steve’s body to kiss his throat. “Take off your shirt.”

Steve did and Billy slid down Steve’s body, resting between his thighs on the bed. He kissed the spot above his belly button, through the trail of dark hair bisecting his stomach down to his groin. Below, the hair thickened, thinning over the bridge of his hips and thickening against at his groin. Billy’s lips trailed over the path, nipping the skin stretched across his hipbones, nose dipping into the crease of his thigh.

The scent was thicker, muskier, with a hint of salt that Billy licked off. Steve’s muscle jumped beneath his touch. Billy turned his head, lips skimming over the base of his cock. His tongue darted out, flat against the side of Steve’s dick, licking from root to tip, and Steve swore, hips jerking up and hands settling on the back of Billy’s head.

His cock was thick, flushed a ruddy pink that darkened at the tip, foreskin a few shades lighter than the skin of his shoulders. Billy let his lips run over the head, gentle, soft, splaying a hand on Steve’s hip, tucking the vee of his thumb and pointer against the base. He nudged back foreskin with his lips, fitting his mouth over the exposed glans, and sucked.

Steve moaned, a shudder wracking through his body that Billy felt on his tongue. His hands stroked over Billy’s hair, hips twitching up as Billy swallowed down, until the head rested against the back of his tongue, threatening to slip into his throat.

He closed his eyes and bobbed his head, slow, wet suction, spit slipping past the ring of his lips. It was sloppy and messy, because Billy didn’t care to be neat and tidy about it, about the weight of Steve’s dick on his tongue and the startled whine-whimper when Billy swallowed against the head, Billy’s fingers curling around the base to hold him still, tight when he jerked and pressed too deep.

The stutter-stutter-inhale of Steve’s breathing kept Billy in check, eyes closed, blissed out on the weight and taste of Steve in his mouth. When he gasped and twitched, fingers coiling around Billy’s hair, he pulled off with an obscene and wet noise, nuzzling his way down to Steve’s balls, soft skin and wiry hair dampening with the saliva slicking his chin, moving back to his cock when Steve’s thighs stopped trembling.

The third time he did it, Steve grunted, kicking at Billy’s shoulder with his heel. Billy laughed, choking on the sound as he pulled away to glance up the length of Steve’s body, the shadows of ribs and sharp hips, the thick curl of hair across his chest—the baleful glare he shot him.

Billy kissed the crown of his cock, fingers wrapped loose as he jacked him, sliding the foreskin back and forth where his lips didn’t touch. “Yes?”

Steve kicked him again, shifting restlessly. He tugged Billy’s hair, sharp, soothing fingers stroking his scalp. “Don’t tease.”

“That’s the point.”

“To drive me insane?” A pretty red flush had spread across his cheeks and chest

“Is it working?”

Steve didn’t reply. His head fell back again, rocking his hips up, expectant. Billy laughed again, joy on his tongue, and tucked the head into his mouth, teeth artfully hidden away, working over the slit and pressing in, tightening his grip on Steve’s cock, stroking with purpose.   

His muscles twitched to the sound of his breath, rolling beneath his skin like waves, tiny gasps that left Billy aching, grinding down against the sheets and leaving a wet patch where his cockhead rubbed against the sheets.

His cock leaked over Billy’s tongue, adding to the mess, balls drawing up tight, swollen where Billy rolled them in his palm, thumb rocking against the spot just below. Steve jerked, a battle-torn noise breaking from his throat like he was trying to keep it down, spunk flooding into Billy’s mouth, bitter salt and body-hot.

Holding him down, he worked Steve through his orgasm, spunk pooling on his tongue until Steve whined, pushing at his shoulders, gasping out a garbled, “ _Too much_.”

Billy pushed himself up to kneel, spitting in his left palm, spunk and spit and the taste of Steve wrapping around his own cock, achingly hard. He groaned, eyes half shut, head falling forward as her jerked himself off in quick, brutal strokes, orgasm hot on his heels.

It ripped through him. He bit back the noise, hard enough to taste iron in his mouth, a dull roar of white noise ringing in his ears as he spilled across Steve’s hips and stomach, below his navel. A drop landed on his softening cock. Billy fixated on it, staring, dumb, until the trembling in his thighs stopped.

Falling to the side and rolling onto his back, he lay on Steve’s bed, shoulder crammed against Steve’s warm thigh. His hand curled loose around his own cock, the weight softening on his palm. The world tilted, blurring, and he sucked in a sharp breath and held it until his lungs burned and his brain tilted back on its axis.

They stayed there, quiet except for their shared breathing. Blissed out, he listened to Steve breath in and out, until the sharp inhale-inhale-stutter evened out, until he shifted beside him, startling Billy from the post-fuck daze he’d fallen in.

“So. Uh.” Steve swallowed, loud, like his lips were on Billy’s ear. Billy cracked an eye and craned his head up. Steve wasn’t looking at him, eyes fixed on the off-white ceiling.

“So?”

“I don’t owe you now, right? Debt’s paid?”

Oh. Right.

The debt.

The drugs and the deal, the idea Jamie had put in Steve’s stupid fucking skull, the one he had actually followed through on.

That debt.

Billy scoffed and rolled away, sitting up and swinging his legs over the edge of the bed. His whole body felt loose, warm and dreamy, ready to bed down after an eight hour hell-shift and a stupidly intense orgasm with a boy he’d used to think about too much.

“Yeah,” he said, getting up from the bed and picking his shirt up. He wiped his mouth and chin off on the back of it and pulled it on. He didn’t look at Steve. “We’re square.”

Steve didn’t look at him as he pulled on his pants, creased from the floor, and Billy only knew that because he kept peeking over his shoulder, something decidedly cold and distant spreading every time he turned and Steve was still staring at the ceiling.

Something sour flooded his mouth, metallic and off, like chewing on tinfoil. 

His chest felt heavy like lead and bricks of cocaine.

He cast a look over his shoulder. Steve still wasn’t looking at him. He swallowed the taste down and muttered, “I’ll see you later.”

He took the stairs two at a time, mind blank until he reached the bottom, hand on the banister as he swung toward the front door.

It was stupid. He was stupid. Fucking stupid to think—that he had a _right_ —that it was anything but—

Dirty blond hair, olive skin, dark eyes. Grey school athletics t-shirt and hideous purple sweatpants he swore were for good luck.

“Jamie!” he called, smile plastered on his face as he veered left instead of right.

Jamie and two others that Billy had never bothered to learn the names of stood around the pool table, beers in hand. They turned as Billy stepped into the rec room. Jamie grinned, leaning his hip against the pool table and setting his beer to balance precariously on the ledge.

“Hey, man. What’cha doing here?”

Billy stopped next to him, giving the other two a quick once over, dismissing them immediately. “Oh, you know,” he said, turning his attention back to Jamie, “just the usual. I was just hanging around, so I thought I’d come visit my old buddy Harrington.”

 Jamie’s smile turned Cheshire-sharp. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” he said, nodding, setting a gentle hand on Jamie’s shoulder. He squeezed, the corner of his mouth curling up. “I just wanted to thank you, man.”

Jamie laughed and shifted on his heels. “No need to thank me. You got what you wanted. He did, too.”

“No, man, I really need to thank you,” Billy said again, leaning his head down, close to Jamie’s ear. His lips parted around words that didn’t come.

He grabbed Jamie’s neck, fingers iron bands around his nape, kicking hard at his kneecap until he buckled. He went chest down on the pool table, balls rolling, stick dropping from his hand. Billy grabbed the bottle by the neck, smashing it against the ledge. It broke with a shatter, sticky beer sliding over his wrist and down his arm, splattering across his shirt. Glass fell to the floor, quiet on the carpet.

He ignored it, crowding his hips up against Jamie, shoving his cheek against the felt, smile wiped from his face. Beside him, the two others made noises, angry and outraged, closing in on where he held Jamie against the pool table.

He tilted the broken bottle between the two of them. “Shut the fuck up,” he said to them, eyes drilling holes into Jamie’s skull.

Jamie grunted. “ _Billy_! What the _fuck_!”

“We’re gonna call the cops,” one of the others said.

“What did I just say?” Billy asked tightly, throwing them a quick glance. They’d backed up two steps, one clutching the pool stick like a weapon, the other holding his in defense. “Shut the fuck up,” he said again, jamming his knee against the back of Jamie’s thigh when he squirmed.

“And you,” he said, bringing the sharp glass to Jamie’s neck. Jamie stopped squirming, sucking in a breath. A twitch ran down his spine. Billy pressed the edge of the glass against his skin, until it gave way and blood swelled.

“Billy, come on,” Jamie pleaded, another tremor wracking his body. “I don’t know why you’re doing this—”

“Let me enlighten you,” he said and leaned down, bent over the prone curve of Jamie’s body, lips a hairsbreadth from his ear. “If I ever fucking find out you told Harrington to do something this fucking stupid again, I’ll kill you. You tell him to go somewhere else, to suck some fuckhead off, I’ll make you wish you’d never crawled out of that sorry cunt between your mother’s legs. Got it?”

Jamie nodded stiffly. Billy pressed harder on his neck, until the skin stained a brighter red, and he squeaked, “I got it! I’m sorry! I got it!”

“Good boy,” Billy said, and then smiled, letting go of Jamie’s neck to pat his cheek. He stepped away, glancing at the bottle in his hand, at the blood flecking the vee of his thumb and forefinger, at the beer dripping onto the floor.

Billy dropped the bottle and smiled cheerily. Jamie scrambled away from him, tripping over his bare feet, scurrying away from him, staring with wide, frightened eyes.

“Nice seeing you, boys,” he said, and patted the nearest one on the shoulder. He flinched away from Billy’s touch.

Billy laughed, hyena-loud and joyful, and when he climbed into his car and jammed another piece of gum into his mouth, he felt a little less fragile.


	2. sweetheart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I—” The line of his throat bobbed. “He kissed me. Asked me to go down on him.”
> 
> “Did you?”
> 
> “No.”
> 
> “Why not?”
> 
> “He wasn’t you.” Steve’s eyes closed, red spreading across his cheeks. He rocked into Billy’s hand. Billy let him. “I wanted to see. If it was the same.”
> 
> “Was it?”
> 
> “No. God,” Steve groaned, opening his eyes, fingers digging cruelly into the flesh of Billy’s thigh in demand, “he was nothing like you. Is that what you want to hear?”
> 
> “Yes.”
> 
> Steve barked out a laugh. “You freak.”

God had to have been laughing when he dropped Steve Harrington right in Billy’s lap. Billy didn’t give much of a fuck about religion, but he still grinned like a dumbass when the priest had slipped in a tenner and blessed his day just because his chicken carbonara didn’t taste like dog shit.

He thought of Steve below him, arched and panting and fingers scrambling for more.

He tried not to think of Steve. Popping wood at work was a one-way ticket to Hannah, the maître’d, smacking him with a newspaper like a disobedient puppy.

He did his best not to think of Steve, sweet and wanting, on the drive to work, in the shower, when he was trying to sleep at night. It worked until it didn’t, when he was chewing his way through another pack of gum before his shift at work and Jamie knocked on the door.

Hanging off his shoulder was Eric, Frat King of UC, fingers dug so tight in Jamie’s shoulders Billy could feel it in his own skin.

Billy crossed his arms, leaned against the door frame and snapped his gum. “What do you want?”

Eric smiled that smile that had hook-line-and-sinkered Billy the first time they’d met. It was all charm and grace, all kingly with a hint of something dirty at the corners of his eyes. “Jamie,” he said, and shoved Jamie forward so hard he stumbled, “has something he’d like to say to you.”

Jamie looked like he was going to piss himself. There were bruises beneath his eyes, darker than Steve’s had been.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled.

Billy snapped his gum again. He kept his eyes on Eric. “That it?”

The smile on Eric’s face tightened. His hand moved to the back of Jamie’s neck. Jamie let out a whine, shoulder dipping to get away from the bite of nails. “Eric, man, I said I was sorry!”

“Say it like you mean it.”

Jamie’s knees buckled under Eric’s hand. Billy watched them. Jamie twitched, hands twisting in the bottom of his shirt as he said, “I’m sorry. For what I did.”

Billy shifted on his heels, rocked back, looked him over. “What’d you do, Jamie?”

“Told Steve to come to you.”

“That’s not what you did.”

“It’s what I fucking did!”

“Is it?”

Eric’s smile tightened. He squeezed on the back of Jamie’s neck until he winced. “Fuck! Okay, okay,” he said, and squirmed away from Eric’s hand when he let go. “Fine. Fuck. I’m sorry I told Steve to suck cock for pills. Is that good enough?”

The question wasn’t directed at Billy. Billy answered for him anyway. “Not really, but it’ll do for now. Is that fucking all?”

Eric elbowed Jamie toward the stairwell and said, “Go wait in the car.”

“But—”

“Go wait in the fucking car, James, before you really piss me off.”

Jamie scurried off, shooting an angry glare at them both. Eric’s smile slipped from his face. Billy smacked his gum again.

“So what’d they tell you?” he asked.

“That you tried to kill Jamie.”

Billy snorted. “He’s a pussy.”

“I almost believed him.”

“Almost?”

“You are a crazy motherfucker.”

“Yeah?” Billy asked. He stepped backward and to the side. Eric siddled inside after him. “What were you gonna do? Give me a stern talking to?”

“Steve told me, you know.”

Billy spat his gum into the garbage can and gestured to the coffeemaker. “Want one?”

Nodding, Eric settled himself on one of the battered kitchen chairs, hands folded on the table. He was always too serious, from the moment Billy had met him.

“What did Steve tell you?” he asked, pouring two mugs of coffee, topping one with sugar and milk like Eric liked.

“That you two know each other. I thought it was kinda funny. You never mentioned it.”

Billy set the mug in front of Eric and took the seat next to him. “We weren’t friends.”

“But you are now.”

Billy looked at Eric over the rim of his mug, through the curl of steam. “Is Jamie gonna be a problem?”

“I don’t know. Are you going to be a problem?”

“When have I ever been a problem?’

“You’ve never given me such a run around over dick before, Billy.”

He smiled, paper-thin and said, “What did Steve tell you about me?”

Eric looked him over, slow, hunting for a flaw, for a give, for a slip in his poker face. He did it with everyone. Billy had seen it firsthand. Exploiting others came like breathing to Eric. Billy could appreciate a talent like that.

“He said you moved to Hawkins and you were friends. He also said he got pills from you—and I’m not stupid, Billy. I know what that means.”

Billy drank his coffee carefully. It burned his tongue. The clock above the stove ticked away, reminding him that he had work in an hour. He ignored it and said, “We were friends,” he admitted.

“Is that why you tried to cut Jamie’s neck?”

“Jamie deserved it.”

Eric sighed through his nose. “You talk in circles a lot.”

“I know.”

“You could try being straight with me.”

“Or what?”

“Plenty of dealers in Oakland, Billy. Don’t let it go to your head. You’re not that special.”

It was a hit to his wallet. Fucking _Harrington_ , always coming around to fuck shit up. If it wasn’t getting him in shit with Neil when he was a teenager, it was fucking with the careful business he had set up with Eric when he’d been a freshman, pink-faced and pretty and desperate to make an impression on campus.

If he had good coke, he was in. Billy had the coke, and the weed, and the acid and the pills. He had it all in abundance, and Eric was always willing to pay.

And, yeah, fucking _sure_ , he loved that it was easy. College kids with tuition paid by mommy and daddy, throwing parties seven days a week because they didn’t have to pay for shit. It was easy money when all he had to do was show up. It was easy because Eric did all the work.

It sure would fuck up his plans to bum around in Cuba for a couple weeks in the winter.

Billy kissed his teeth. “Are you trying to say something, Eric?”

“I’m saying,” Eric said, throwing his arm over the back of his chair and leaning back, “that you keeping shit from me doesn’t work so well.”

“My shit with Harrington has nothing to do with you.”

“Anthony nearly pissed himself and called the cops when you left. You know that, right?”

“Which one is Anthony again?”

Eric smiled, sickly-sweet and dead behind the eyes. “I can end this association at any time.”

“Association?” he echoed. “What are you, the fucking mob?”

“Any time, Billy.” His smile was predatory, like he knew how to handle something without daddy’s credit card.

Billy smiled back. “And risk someone dying?”

The smile dropped, lips twisting into something ugly. Underneath, Eric was always ugly. Billy liked that about him, even when he was biting the hand that fed. “That wasn’t my fault.”

“Yeah? I think it was.”

Eric scowled, deep, and curled his fingers into a fist. “He shouldn’t have taken it if he didn’t know what he was getting into.”

“You shouldn’t have bought laced shit from some fucker on the street.”

Eyes narrowing, Eric dropped his fist to the table and leaned forward. “You have a smart mouth.”

Billy shrugged and drank his coffee, finished it off. His gums itched. He wanted a cigarette. “So do you.”

“Is Steve your boyfriend or some shit?”

“He’s mine.”

“Yours? Like, what—is he your pet now?”

“Like he’s mine, Eric.”

“Yours _how_?”

“Like if I find out someone touched him I’m gonna put their head through the front door and run them over with my fucking car.”

Eric flicked his tongue against his teeth and leaned back, arms crossing over his chest. Billy shrugged again, stood and said, “Is that a problem?”

“I don’t know. Is it?”

“You can make it a problem if you want.”

Eric scoffed and stood, too. He was taller than Billy by an inch, and his spine was stiff enough Billy could see it through his shirt.

“Don’t stab anyone in the house. I don’t care what you do with Steve.”

“Then why are you here, big man?”

“Because there’s a party tomorrow, dipshit, and Kristine wants coke, but no one wants to hang around a fucking psychopath. You could at least _try_ to be normal.”

Billy bit his lip and turned to pour himself another cup of coffee. He took it black, stirring in sugar and said, “I’d almost say you like me, Eric. Picking Jamie over me? Never thought I’d see the day.”

“I’d almost say you’re nuts but I already know you are.” He clapped his hand on Billy’s shoulder and his smile was softer, amused, and added, “Jamie’s a fucking moron, anyway.”

“Jamie should keep his mouth shut. You gonna make him wait all night?”

Eric reached passed him for the coffee pot. “Just ten more minutes.”

 

 

 

The party was in full swing by the time Billy got off work. Hair still damp from his shower, slicked back and collar popped, he felt bright-eyed, the espresso he’d downed like a shot before he’d fled the restaurant buzzing pleasantly in his veins.

Music vibrated on his skin, the hoots and hollers of laughter and joy, the sweet shuffle of hands groping over each other next to the front door. He slipped through easily, wound his way to the kitchen, and found Kristine sitting on the counter, Eric between her thighs and skirt riding high.

He did his best to not look for Steve and failed. The twitchiness that had wormed its way beneath his skin since that night in Steve’s bedroom had only been amplified by Eric’s visit. He’d paced in the morning and night, tried not to let himself dissolve into idle thoughts about Steve’s mouth and eyes and dick, the sound of him when he came, tried not to let Steve sink himself deeper inside his skin until he couldn’t scratch him out.

He was better than this, he reminded himself, picking a beer from the fridge and digging into his back pocket. Caught between two fingers, he held up the baggie for Kristine.

She grinned, bright, a little wild-eyed, and reached past Eric’s shoulder, swiping it from Billy’s hand.

“Thank you!” she shouted over the music, and Billy gave her a two-finger salute, catching Eric’s laughter as he turned away and stepped out of the kitchen.

He paced and prowled, sold the contents of his pockets and tried not to stare at the bottom of the stairs. He drank until he was riding the edge of buzzed, smoked on the veranda and laughed when a shirtless freshman tumbled into the hedges.

Billy thought of Steve and his mouth and his hair and the bleary eyes that had looked up at him while on his knees.

Stupid fucking Steve Harrington, with his bad ideas and pretty doe-fucking-eyes. Getting his dick in the guy who’d gotten his dick hard in high school would have been such a riot, but he’d tripped over backwards somewhere and blown Steve instead, because—

Because. Just because. Because Steve was Steve and Billy was Billy, that was why.

By the time he was climbing up the steps, slow and steady and want already bleeding into his veins, he was chomping at the bit for a cigarette. He jammed a stick of gum into his mouth and slipped down the hallway.

There were people upstairs, backed up against walls and hanging out of half-open bathrooms. A cloud of sharp-smelling smoke escaped a bedroom as Billy passed by and a redhead wearing just a jersey shimmied across the hall into the next bedroom.

Sigma Phi Epsilon didn’t make a lick of fucking sense to Billy but he could enjoy it. He did, usually, where he’d been camped downstairs all night—on the back porch, the kitchen, the laundry room, anywhere there were people who wanted drugs and were willing to pay, on their knees or with Billy’s rent. He’d leave in the early hours, red-eyed and pleased, and do it all again when the next part came around.

He was a dumb schmuck. Steve hadn’t called. It wasn’t like they were on a date, where they held hands and kissed and made plans for another day, but Billy expected _something_. Anything, even if it was Steve banging down his door to chew him out for the beer bottle trick.

Billy pushed open Steve’s door and wished he had another beer bottle. He wanted the knife in his glove box, the Louisville behind his door, the gun jammed in the back of his closet he forgot about most days. The gum wasn’t enough, unless he could blow a bubble big enough to clog up lungs.

He cocked his head, snapped his gum. Looked between Steve—shirtless on the bed, chest blood-flushed in a way that made Billy bleed stomach acid into his gum and mouth red in a way that made him taste blood—to Scott Conrad, beside him, one hand on Steve’s knee, a distinctly stupid look on his face.

Steve choked on a cough, jerked away from Scott and scrambled to the other side of the bed, away from the both. “Billy. _Jesus_. You scared the shit out of me.”

Billy rested his shoulder against the door frame, let his body fill the entire doorway. He snapped his gum. He looked between the two of them, slow, taking it in. He tasted iron and sour in his mouth, the mint enough to make him want to vomit or spit it out, like into Scott’s face.

“Hey,” he said. “What’cha guys doing?”

Scott stood, slow and adjusted the collar of his shirt. His belt was undone. Billy wanted to strangle him with it. “Billy,” he said, and took two strides forward like the big, brave fucking man he was, shoulders squared and spine stiff. “What are you doing here?”

Billy looked him over, let his eyes scrape over every inch of Scott’s body like a knife point, and then looked over his shoulder at Steve.

He was pink-faced. Like a _girl_. Billy told him so.

Steve scowled, hissed like a cornered animal, and stood up. “I’m going to punch you in the mouth.”

“Yeah?” he asked, snapped his gum because he could. “Doesn’t look like the only thing you wanna do with my mouth.”

Scott raised his eyebrows and then his hands, half-clenched, like he was going to do it for Steve. Something hot and wanting snaked in his belly, twisted itself into a knot. He hoped Scott would. Prayed for it like he prayed for drugs and dick.

“What the hell is wrong with you? It’s none of your business,” Scott snapped, turning to jerk a hand toward Steve. “This is his room. What are you even doing here?”

“I don’t know, Steve,” Billy said. “What am I doing here?”

“I don’t know, Billy, what are you doing here?”

“What’s he doing here?” he asked, jerked his head toward Scott.

Bewildered, Scott fixed his belt, ran a hand through his finger-fluffed hair and sent a scowl at Steve. “You said you weren’t seeing anyone! Especially— _him_. Really, Steve?” Scott flicked his tongue, made a clucking noise with it. “Him? Billy? You’re fucking _Billy_.”

Steve fixed a glare at Scott, skirting around the bed. “We’re just friends,” he said, gruff, like he’d had something jammed down his throat.

Billy didn’t want to think about it. He didn’t want to see them on the bed, in his head, Steve’s pretty mouth slicked and stretched red, eyes watering and cheeks pinking. He didn’t want to think about what Scott sounded like when he came.

“You suck all your friends’ dicks?” he asked. He wanted to move. To take steps into the room, close the door and lock it. Gut Scott and hang him on the wall like a mounted kill, like the moose head in Neil and Susan’s living room. Spread Steve out on the blood, bite his neck until he scarred, burn bruise marks into his hips until they tattooed themselves on his skin.

The breath Steve sucked in shook his whole body. His spine twitched with it, head moving quickly back in forth, eyes going a little crazy around the edges like he wanted to do something illegal to Billy. “I’m going to kill you.”

Billy cracked a grin, blew a bubble and glanced at Scott. “You can leave now.”

Scott looked between them both, hands held up in defense. “Steve, do you want me to—?”

“Leave? Sure.”

“It’s _fine_ , Scott,” he said, forceful, cutting off Billy. He set a hand on Scott’s shoulder and gave him a nudge toward the door. Billy felt his whole body twitch. “I’m fine. Just—you should go.”

Scott hesitated, a suspicious glance he split between them. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah,” Steve said, eyes narrowed on Billy.  “You really should go.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah—”

“He’s sure.”

“I wasn’t talking to you, Billy.

“Scott—”

“He wants you to go.”

“Billy—”

“He hasn’t _said_ that.”

“Okay !” Steve snapped, stepping between the closing distance between them both, one hand on each of their shoulders. He pushed. Scott stepped back. Billy stayed put. “Stop with the pissing contest. Just go Scott.”

“But—”

“Yeah, Scott,” Billy said, smiled like a big cat, lazy and vicious. “Go.”

The look Steve gave him was downright baleful, cheeks flushed with the heat of anger. Billy wanted to lick it off him, give him something else to turn pink about. He smiled, pretty, for Steve, and Steve’s eyes narrowed, sharp like a pinpoint.

Scott looked between them, lips parted like he had something to say, and then he shook his head. “Fine. Whatever. I’ll leave you two to it.”

Billy watched him go, watched his shoulders disappear around the corner of the door. Steve watched from over his shoulder, unmoving. When Billy finally turned back to him, blowing a bright pink bubble between his lips, Steve just looked tired.

Steve raised his eyebrows at him, eyes heavy. “The hell was that about?”

“How was he?”

His brows hitched further. “What’s it matter?”

He wanted to rip him apart. He wanted to tear Steve into little, bite-sized pieces, swallow what he could and stomp on the remains. It gnawed at him, itched inside his tongue and teeth, hollowed out his bones and settled itself there. It was the kind of want that had landed him in trouble as a kid, busting jaws and lips and spleens because he couldn’t handle it. It was the kind of want that he bit his tongue over, that he forced himself to breathe through until the moment passed.

Billy picked the gum from his mouth and stuck it to the edge of the desk.

“Billy, Jesus,” Steve said, exasperated and sighing. “Are you really—?”

He crowded close, licked his mouth like he could taste the pink on Steve’s skin, and cocked his head to the side. Steve stopped mid-sentence and blinked, leaning back when they stood toe-to-toe. His eyes flicked from Billy’s eyes to his mouth, down to the vee of neck and chest exposed by his shirt. When he looked up, his eyes were dilated, wider.

They quickstepped to the wall, until Steve’s back was pressed flat and Billy leaned down, nose brushing against Steve’s throat, inhaling the scent of skin. It was Steve, the edge of detergent. Scott always smelled like cologne. Billy dragged his tongue across Steve’s skin, tasted salt and heat and nothing else.

Steve inhaled sharply, raised his hands as if to push Billy away, and then set them on Billy’s shoulders. Billy let his teeth scrape over his skin, let himself nip at the tender skin beneath his jaw. He let himself suck a mark onto Steve’s throat, until Steve hissed and clenched at the shoulders of his shirt, tugged at the fabric until it wrinkled in his fists.

“The door’s open,” Steve hissed, thick. He pulled Billy closer.

Billy kissed the red on his neck, nosed along the edge of his jaw to his ear. He kissed beneath it. “What’s it matter?”

“Anyone could come in.”

“They already know.”

Steve laughed. It vibrated against Billy’s mouth on his throat. “Whose fault is that?”

“Yours.”

“You fucking took a _beer bottle_ to Tony.”

Billy bit the tender skin of his jaw. Steve shivered, pulled at his shirt and rocked up against him. He was all heat and naked skin. Billy hooked a finger in the waistband of his sweatpants and tugged, kissed his way over his chin to lick into his mouth.

He’d spent days and nights haunted and hunted by Steve’s mouth. He’d been a kid when he’d started dreaming about it, had pushed it aside when he’d left Indiana. Kissing him felt like winning.

It tasted like slick spit and the muffled almost-protest. Fingers curled in his sweats, Billy pinned him there, caught like prey, and kissed the breath from his lungs, until Steve was pulling him closer, one hand falling off his shoulder to grip his thigh, right below his ass, and haul him closer.

Billy pulled away and laughed. Steve’s eyes narrowed, wet mouth pursed, annoyed. It was so typically _Steve_ that Billy kissed him again, gentler, a brush of lips and bump of their noses. When he pulled back, Steve looked less like he would kick him out.

Steve touched him like gold. It was in the curl of his fingers into his hair, nails scraping across his scalp. His mouth was turned up into a ghost of a smile and his eyes were bright, flicking between Billy’s mouth and his eyes.

“You took a bottle to Tony,” he said again, softer, and there was a question in there that Billy’s brain couldn’t pick out.

“Yeah,” he said, rough and low, fingers dipping deeper into his sweatpants. Steve was hard already, pressed up against his fly. Billy didn’t know if it was him or leftovers from Scott, but when he scratched his fingertips through the coarse thatch of hair above his dick, the startled moan Steve made was all for him.

“Did you—?”

“What?”

Billy ran his thumb along the base of Steve’s dick, felt him twitch beneath his touch. “Did you blow him?”

Steve blinked, slow, eyes a little too blown. “Huh?”

“Scott,” Billy said again, thumb and forefinger curling around the base of his dick. Hot to the touch, velvet smooth, he had the obscene urge to drop to his knees.

Steve’s hips bucked, pressed into his hand, and Billy smiled, let his thumb stroke down the shaft.

“Scott what?” Steve murmured, head falling back against the wall.

“How did he touch you,” Billy said. “I want to know where he touched you.”

“I—” The line of his throat bobbed. “He kissed me. Asked me to go down on him.”

“Did you?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“He wasn’t you.” Steve’s eyes closed, red spreading across his cheeks. He rocked into Billy’s hand. Billy let him. “I wanted to see. If it was the same.”

“Was it?”

“No. God,” Steve groaned, opening his eyes, fingers digging cruelly into the flesh of Billy’s thigh in demand, “he was nothing like you. Is that what you want to hear?”

“Yes.”

Steve barked out a laugh. “You freak.”

Billy pulled his hand free from Steve’s sweats. Steve’s mouth parted around a protest and then closed when he licked his palm, yanking down Steve’s sweatpants with his free hand. He spat in his hand and smiled, reached down and curled his fist around Steve’s dick.

Steve hissed, pulled himself closer by the hand clutching Billy’s shoulder. Billy yanked his pants down his thighs, held him to the wall with his hand when he was done. He rubbed over Steve’s dick, traced the flared head, stroked over the bunch of skin beneath, palm squeezing with each upstroke until Steve fucked up into his fist.

It was quick, brutal, no finesse. It was the hottest experience of Billy’s life. Steve clung to him like a lifeline, pulling at his collar like he couldn’t get enough. He moaned, slick mouth falling open when Billy’s fingers squeezed, trapped his cock in his palm while his fingers squeezed over the head. Each stroke twisted a ragged breath from Steve, eyes going heavy, head dipping down to watch the rhythmic slide of his hand.

“Don’t,” Billy bit out, soft, hand stilling.

Steve _whined_. It sounded so fucking sweet.

“Look at me when you come, sweetheart. I wanna see your pretty face.”

Steve tipped his head back, slow, eyes dipped down. It took him long moments to look up, to make eye contact with Billy, and when he did, Billy moved, stroked over his cock like he had before, steady pressure on the head. He came with his eyes open, the ghost of Billy’s name on his mouth, heat spilling over Billy’s fingers.

Billy touched him through it, played his thumb over the tip. Steve choked on a hiccup and Billy let go, raised his hand to Steve’s mouth, pressed two fingers against his lips until he parted them with a wary look.

Hesitant, he took Billy’s fingers into his mouth, licked between into the webbing and swallowed his own spunk.

 

 

 

They slept with the door closed, if only because Steve could whine like a little bitch when he was sleepy. Stripped naked, Billy curled around Steve’s back, legs entwined and Billy’s arm pitched over Steve’s side. He slept with his nose buried in Steve’s hair, tangled up in Steve.

“Where are you going?” Steve slurred, one eye half open, cheek squished into the pillow.

His hair fell into his face. Billy sat next to him, pushing his bangs from his eye. Steve blinked, raised his head from the pillow. Red creases cut into his cheek and chin. Billy traced them with his fingertip.

“I’ve got work,” Billy said, quiet, knuckles tracing over the curve of Steve’s lip. Steve yawned, teeth bumping Billy’s hand. Amused, he added, “Go back to bed, baby.”

Steve rolled onto his side, propped up on an elbow, and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. “What time is it?”

“Five.”

“In the morning?”

Billy grinned. “Yeah.”

Squinting in the darkness, Steve reached out and plucked at the hem of his shirt. “Come back to bed. It’s too early.”

“Work,” Billy said again. He leaned down and kissed Steve’s mouth. Steve tried to pull him into the bed. He laughed against his mouth. “Some of us have to work for a living.”

Steve licked his lips, lazy, eyes still heavy with sleep. “You could always quit.”

“And what? Get paid to sleep with you?”

“You’d make a good whore.”

“Are you calling me a whore?”

“Nah,” Steve said, and smiled sleepily, throwing himself back against his pillow. “A professional fucker.”

Billy laughed, coughed on it to bite the bark back. “You’re an asshole.”

“You love it.”

He kissed Steve on the corner of his mouth, slipping a hand into his pocket to pulling out a small bag, crumpled, with a handful of white pills stamped with CIBA. Steve turned an interested eye on them, eyebrow raising even as he curled an arm under his pillow and asked, “Those for me or are you just being a dick?”

“You can pay me back tomorrow night.”

“I’ll probably be shit at sucking cock.”

“You can learn,” Billy said and kissed Steve’s shoulder as he slid off the bed and stood, leaving the bag next to Steve.

Steve rolled onto his back, setting his hand on top of the pills. He wasn’t half-asleep anymore, eyes bright in the glow of the streetlamp outside. Chewing on his lip until it went red, he picked them up, counting out each pill through the bag.

“What do you want me to do? Let you fuck me?”

Billy studied him, watched the way he nipped at the skin of his lip until blood welled. “Want me to?”

“I don’t know.”

“That why you tried fucking Scott?”

Steve licked the blood off and sat up. The bag dropped onto the bed beside him. “I just wanted to try it.”

“You know where I live. You weren’t too shy about showing up uninvited before.”

“Well, that was before you gave me a crisis.”

“I sucked your dick. It’s not a big deal.”

“I liked it.”

“Most guys do.”

Steve made a noise of irritation in his throat. “I like _you_ , dumbass.”

Billy said nothing. He tilted his head to the side, looking over Steve. Steve stared back, jaw tipped stubbornly.

“Come to my place tomorrow night,” Billy said, and was already working out a scratchiness in his voice he could fake on the phone with his boss. “I’ll make it up to you.”

Steve frowned. “Make up what?”

“Not calling you after we fucked.”

Steve swallowed and looked away, fisting the bag of pills in his hand. For a moment, Billy wondered if he would throw it, but then his fingers relaxed and he sighed, flopping back onto the bed.

“Fine. Whatever.” He glanced at Billy. “Eight?”

“Eight works,” Billy said, bending down. He kissed Steve, dipped his tongue into his mouth and tasted a desperate twinge in the noise Steve made when he pulled away.

 

 

 

Billy only knew where Scott lived because they’d fucked once a handful of months back, when Billy had gotten horny enough to put up with incessant chatter if it meant getting his dick wet.

Scott lived a few blocks away from the school. Billy chewed gum and hummed along to the radio, fingers drumming a beat on the steering wheel. He hummed as he parked his car; he hummed as he climbed out and stood next to Scott’s truck, hummed as he dug out the switchblade from his pocket. He hummed as he jammed the knife into each tire. He hummed as he carved _faggot_ into the red paint, dragged a line underneath because he could.

He hummed as he climbed into his car, tossed the knife into the backseat and drove home.

**Author's Note:**

> Vic is a darling. You can catch me on Tumblr @ celoica.


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